Abandoned for Dust
by insert cliche
Summary: Nobody will remember the forgotten girl, and what's left of her will drift as ashes on the wind.


**Disclaimer**: I do not own Naruto, in any way, shape, or form. The characters and setting used all belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

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**Abandoned for Dust**

When Tenten dies, nobody will remember her.

She'll die in battle, because that's the only way anyone will even realize that she's gone.

_Sai will write her name in ink.  
But after another drawing or two, he'll forget he ever made those strokes.  
_  
Her beloved scrolls, made by her own hands, will collect dust in her closet. They won't ever be used again, because she had no family and the seals can only be activated with her blood. Nobody wants to use the dead girl's blood just to gain a few more weapons.

_Ino will wreathe her grave in flowers.  
A few more flower arrangements sold will make her forget that she put them there in the first place.  
_  
The fresh blooms in her apartment, bought only two days before her death, will wither and die like their owner did. Alone.

Tenten loved peonies, the heavy clusters of petals that eventually fell under their own weight. She loved how the fallen petals looked like dragon's scales, and she loved how they told her of the home she didn't remember.

_Shikamaru will think how she was a good playing piece in the game of war. A rook, always steady, or a knight. She was never a queen.  
He'll shrug, sigh, and make do with a different one.  
_  
Nobody knew that she read the old books of war, about the first three shinobi wars and all the skirmishes in between. It was how she truly learned to fight.

Her tactics scrolls and history books will stay hidden under her bed. There will be no more bedtime war stories.

_Chouji might speak to the headstone. Words on the breeze will never be anything more.  
_  
Did anyone hear her last words?

They might have been for Neji - heaven knows that he was her only confidante. She might have told him her last wish, or ask him to help her go up in flames. Her body had been burned to the ground, after all.

Neji won't say, and they won't know. It all works out that way.

_Kiba and Akamaru might recognize her scent.  
They still don't - never did - like the smell of death, and they go out of their way to avoid it.  
_  
Her apartment was always well-ventilated. Her scent's not there anymore.

She hated perfumes, anyways. They were to flashy and bold for someone as unnoticed as her. And shinobi aren't supposed to wear scent, for fear of being tracked down. Tenten was a good shinobi.

_Hinata might cry at the loss of a friend.  
New friends will replace old, and she hadn't been allowed to associate with nobodies in the first place.  
_  
The clan will make sure of that. The one time Tenten had ever gone to the compound gates, she had been driven off with a few harsh words about how commoners like her shouldn't have even existed. To them, she was lower than Naruto had been.

_Shino will know about the loss. He won't mourn, because he never once spoke to her.  
_  
He and his kikaichu continue, like a machine. In that sense, he and the girl are equals, because she could kill ten men in ten seconds, every single time. _Killing machine_, they whispered about her. _Worthless.  
_  
_Sakura will feel her heart wrench at the remains. A few more fallen soldiers, and the older girl is nothing important anymore.  
_  
_Too much blood everywhere_, Tenten thinks. She knows she's going to die here, on an abandoned battlefield covered with poison and weapons and _blood_. So she pulls Neji down to her level and looks into his eyes, just one last time.

_Sasuke never knew her. A missing-nin does not value memories.  
_  
Who's she? they ask. Is that girl civilian or shinobi? Who are her parents? Why is she here?

_Naruto will leave an offering of ramen.  
There are things to do and people to save. Her memory is left behind.  
_  
The food will rot like her body and and leave only the porcelain bowl behind.

Her bones were pure white before they, too, were devoured by the flames.

_Lee will dedicate a victory to her.  
But the flame of youth must burn on without her. _

A dead body is not youthful, and springtime has already passed. She died in autumn, her favorite season.

Only Neji will remember the forgotten girl.

And this is only because he loves her, the heaven that has become ashes and dust.

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Please review.


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